


And on the Themes of Stolen Virtue

by Bluehaven4220



Category: due South
Genre: Absent Parents, Confusion, Established Relationship, Five Years Later, Gen, Single Parents, children ask the toughest questions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-29
Updated: 2016-07-29
Packaged: 2018-07-27 10:11:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,872
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7614022
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bluehaven4220/pseuds/Bluehaven4220
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Samantha Kowalski-Fraser’s daughter Lauren comes home from school devastated that her family is “different”, it leads to a very difficult conversation that she hoped they wouldn’t need to have for at least a few more years.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And on the Themes of Stolen Virtue

**Author's Note:**

> Can be read as a companion/ continuation of my first due South story "I Don't Even Have Hockey Skates"
> 
> Warning: This story deals with the hardship of explaining an absent parent to a young child. I've tried to approach the subject with care. Please let me know if anything needs to change or if it does not seem realistic.
> 
> Special thanks to ButterflyGhost for the beta.

Fort Smith, Northwest Territories, is a small town, made smaller for the fact that children can be cruel without meaning to be. And I had wanted to leave, to see a little more of the country before I really knew where I wanted to be and what I wanted out of life. I was fourteen when I first thought that, and by the time I was sixteen, had an entire plan in my head. I was going to fly out of the Territories, down to Calgary, maybe over to the East Coast and then work for a few years, and then perhaps I’d go off to college and figure out what I wanted to do with my life. It was going to work, and I was going to do everything I’d always wanted. That was, of course, until Lauren had come along.

Of course, I’d never regret Lauren. That child was the best thing that ever happened to me, and I knew it. I’d raised her alone, without her father, from the beginning. Well, that’s not entirely true. My dads, Benton Fraser and Ray Kowalski, now Grandpa and Papa, had been instrumental in saving our lives. They’d accepted us and let me know, in no uncertain terms, that I could rely on them to help me raise my daughter. My mum Susan had been involved as well, but mostly I had Dad and Ray to lean on.

I should have known that this day would come, and by this day, I meant the day that she was old enough to start school. And I knew, with me being so young, that we’d face questions from the other children and their parents, specifically those who didn’t know us that well. I figured, however, that in Fort Smith, population “can count on two hands”, as Ray liked to say, everyone had to know that I was a young mother. Dad had even brought Lauren to work with him a couple of times, and I’d spoken at my old high school, to show just how difficult being a young mother could be.

But having my daughter start her first day of kindergarten, and come home crying was almost too much to handle. When I picked her up at the classroom door, I noticed she’d tugged her braid out and her blonde hair was almost falling in her face. Her cheeks were red, and she was sniffling.

“What’s the matter, sweetheart?” I asked as I loaded her into my truck and buckled her into her car seat.

“School is yucky,” she answered as I handed her her teddy bear, called Paddington.

“Yucky? What made school yucky?” I closed the door and went around the truck to the driver’s side. Once I buckled myself in, I drove out of the parking lot and back toward the house. Yes, we still lived with Dad and Ray, I couldn’t afford an apartment quite yet, but we were getting there.

“The kids say I’m weird.”

“They do?” I went around the corner and down the main street. “Weird isn’t a bad thing, honey. Everybody is weird. Mommy is weird, Grandpa is weird, Papa is weird. So is Grandma. It’s okay to be weird.”

“They said I’m…” I heard her sniffling just before we approached the house. “They said I’m bad for only having a mommy and two weirdo grandpas.”

Obviously we needed to work on her vocabulary a bit more. Then again, what five year old didn’t have a favourite word and use it to describe everything? Also, who the hell was saying such things? Dad and Ray had lived in Fort Smith for over twenty-five years, everyone knew who they were. Why was this suddenly an issue?   

“I used to think the same thing, having two daddies and a mommy,” I really tried to think of a way to explain it to her in a way she could understand without getting overwhelmed. “But then it wasn’t so bad. Having two daddies made me special, just like having two grandpas makes you special.”

“But why do other people say it’s bad?”

So _that’s_ where this was coming from. Someone in her new class must have said something without meaning to hurt anyone’s feelings, but with young children being notorious for having absolutely no filter on their mouths, it had come out the wrong way.

“Who says it’s bad to have two grandpas?” we pulled into the driveway and quickly made our way into the house; it was already too cold to stay outside for long. “I think you and me and Grandpa and Papa all need to have a talk about this.”

“I’m scared, Mommy.”

“What do you mean, sweetheart? Scared of what?” This was very unusual. I’d never heard this type of chatter from Lauren before. She hadn’t even had the nightmares about monsters under the bed, let alone any anxiety about our family being different. Of course, we’d never said anything about that, as it just didn’t matter. We got in the door and took our boots off, but when she saw Dad and Ray sitting at the table, she promptly burst into tears, clawing at my pants.

“Up, Mommy, up!” she sobbed, burying her face into my shoulder as I obliged her. Dad and Ray were looking at me, absolutely gobsmacked.

“What on earth happened?” Dad asked as he pulled out a chair for me to sit in.”Lauren, what’s the matter?”

My poor baby couldn’t answer him, her hysterical sobs turning to hiccups as I sat her on my lap and rocked her. Ray had gotten up and poured us both a glass of water.

“She’s scared, Grandpa,” I explained over her head. “School was yucky today, and it’s cold, and Paddington fell in the mud as we were coming inside and now he needs a bath.” I reached down at the foot of my chair and produced said teddy bear, now covered in snow and mud, in dire need of that aforementioned bath.

“Oh my, you weren’t kidding, Mommy,” Dad picked up Paddington and turned him over three times. He sat the stuffed bear down on the table and made the bear sit up. “Now then, Paddington,” he addressed the bear while looking over at Lauren, who was slowly calming herself as I rocked her. “I believe we’ve told you time and time again not to go jumping in mud puddles.”

Lauren giggled, sniffling once as Dad continued to lecture Paddington the bear on the importance of mud only getting on our boots and our outdoor clothes.

“And now, young sir, you are due for a bath.” Dad picked the toy up and took him into the laundry room, as Ray rubbed circles on Lauren’s back. Once Dad returned, he sat down at the table and waited in silence.

“What made school yucky today?” Ray asked as Lauren stuck her thumb in her mouth, whimpering.

“Thumb out of your mouth please,” I gently admonished her. “Remember I said it’s okay to tell Grandpa and Papa why today was yucky?”

Lauren nodded, doing as she was told. “They said I’m bad.”

“Who said that?” Ray’s eyes darkened. He was Lauren’s biggest champion, and God help anyone who said anything remotely insulting about any of us. “Do I need to kick em in the head?”

“Papa…” Dad put a hand on Ray’s shoulder. "I don’t think kicking anyone in the head is the answer, and we all know Lauren is not bad,” he got up and went to put the kettle on. “Who said you were bad, sweetheart? Maybe we need to have a talk with their parents.”

“Other kids, I dunno their names yet,” Lauren explained. “They said I was bad because I only have a mommy and two grandpas.”

Dad and Ray looked at each other, evidently thinking the same thing I was. No one had taught this child, whoever they were, that families were all different. It had been over twenty-five years, and no one had said anything about me having two dads in a very long time.

“Well, every family is different, Lauren,” Ray started, same as I had in the car only a few minutes earlier. “Some families have a mommy and daddy, some only have a mommy, some only have a daddy, and some families are like ours. With a mommy and two grandpas.” The simplest explanation was the right one, he had decided. Hopefully she would understand.

“Why don’t I have a daddy?”

Oh, I knew this question would come up someday. I just wasn’t expecting it so soon. Dad and Ray and I had never discussed her father in front of her, and had certainly never spoken ill of him. Even if he’d left me when I first found out I was pregnant, it would not be right for me to drag his name through the mud when he wasn’t there to defend his decision. And it was not up to Lauren to try and fill the void he’d left. She was only four years old, and had only know Dad and Ray as father figures.

I took a deep breath and reached out my hand behind Lauren’s back. Ray grabbed it in reassurance. Dad was silent, knowing it was something I had to explain. Even five years later, they still didn’t know the whole story. Might as well try and get it all out in the open.

“Your daddy wasn’t ready to be a daddy,” I told her as she curled into me for a cuddle. “He didn’t make good choices, and he moved away.”

I saw Lauren’s face fall and small tears welling in her eyes. My heart broke.

“Why?” she asked me,

God, I wanted to know that too. Why had he left? How could he not want to know this beautiful little girl?

“I don’t know, Lauren,” I had to be honest with her, she wouldn’t thank me if I lied.

“Did I do something wrong?”

I looked over her head at Dad, who had his Mountie mask on, and Ray was squeezing my hand, in response to how hard I was gripping his as I tried to keep myself together.

“No,” I didn’t even have to think about it. “No, Lauren, you did everything right.”

“Were the bad choices drugs?”

I could have fainted from the shock. Where had she heard about anything of the sort? I’d certainly never said anything about drugs, and Dad had always been very careful when he was talking about the cases he worked on when he came home. Ray wasn’t a police officer in Fort Smith, instead he worked as a mechanic, specializing in snowmobile repair, so he wouldn’t have said anything either.

“No, the bad choices were not drugs,” I told her, taking a deep breath. “The bad choices were things that we’ll talk about when you’re older, sweetheart.”

“Can I write him a letter?”

I swallowed the lump in my throat. “Yes you can. And I will write one too. When you want to send yours, we’ll go to the post office and put it in the mail.”

“Okay…” it amazed me how upset the conversation had made me. Lauren had simply been curious, and I was not going to simply dismiss her questions because they made me uncomfortable. “Papa, can I have some paper? And a pencil?”

“Sure thing, Bubbles,” Ray nodded, using her nickname. Once upon a time, she’d admonished Ray for using it, insisting that her name was not Bubbles, but now she’d grown to like it. Ray let go of my hand and got up, heading toward his desk in the living room. “Come on, you and me will sit at my desk and we’ll get started.”

“What about Mommy?” she jumped off my lap and stopped, turning her head and looking at both of us.

“Mommy and Grandpa need to go outside for a few minutes and make sure everything is ready for the new puppies,” Ray gave Dad and I a knowing look. He understood I needed a little time to process what my daughter had asked of me, and Dad would be able to help while Ray looked after Lauren, keeping her busy.

“Right,” Dad nodded and pat my hand. “Alright Mommy, let’s head on out to the barn, hmm?”

“Good idea…” I hadn’t bothered to change out of my coat when we got in the door, I had simply taken my boots off. It didn’t take long for us to get ourselves dressed and outside.

_Don’t scream until you’re in the barn, don’t scream until you’re in the barn, don’t scream until you’re in the barn._

Once we got in there, however, I couldn’t scream. I simply turned toward Dad, and sobbed.

“You handled that well, Sammie,” he pulled me into his arms. “That was not an easy task at all.”

Somehow that didn’t make me feel any better. “How do I tell her that her father’s in jail?” I sobbed into his chest.

“How do you know that?”

“I write to his grandparents,” I confessed. “Every few months or so for the last year and a half. They want to meet Lauren, but I’m not so sure. For now, they’re content with writing letters until I think she’s old enough to understand who they are.”

“How did they find out? If…” he stumbled over Lauren’s sperm donor’s name.

“A.J.,” It had been a very long time since I’d said his name out loud. It still hurt. 

“If A.J. denied paternity and left, as we know he did, how did they find out Lauren is their great-granddaughter?”

“They saw our picture in the paper, just after you received your award for over forty years of service to the RCMP,” I rummaged in my coat pocket for a tissue or a handkerchief. “Apparently they had always liked me, and remembered me, and when they saw Lauren’s picture, well they seem to think she has A.J.’s eyes. Which, I won’t lie, she does. That’s the only thing she inherited from him. Anyway…” finding neither tissue nor handkerchief, I had to wipe my nose on my sleeve. “The last letter they wrote me, they told me he’d pleaded guilty to armed robbery and assault. He’s not getting out for a long time.”

“Oh sweetheart…” he said nothing more, just held me close.

“Besides all that, it isn’t Lauren’s fault he didn’t want her,” I sobbed again. “I’ve never said anything rude about him in front of her or to you and Ray, yet all I want to do right now is punch him in the face for being such a cunt.” Dad flinched at my language, but he didn’t challenge it. God knows, he hated the man as much as I did. “How could he not want her? My beautiful baby, and he wants nothing to do with her.”

“That’s his loss, Sammie,” Dad sat me down on the chair in the corner and got on his knees in front of me, taking my hands in his. “You made a very difficult decision in being a young mother, and even though this is hurting you, I'm proud of you.”

“But it shouldn’t hurt me, that's the point,” I insisted. “It's been five years and I haven't thought about him. I didn’t think I’d have to, at least not for a very long time.” I gulped, trying not to start crying again. “I just wish I didn't understand why she's asking about him.”

“It's natural for her to be curious,” Dad answered. “Especially when she's seeing other children whose families are different from what she knows.”

“That may be, but I have no idea how to explain this to her.”

Dad squeezed my shoulder. “You don’t have to say anything more about him tonight. Take a little time to think it through.” He got up and kissed my forehead. “Let's go inside and see what Ray and Lauren have been up to.”

We went back inside to see Lauren and Ray laying on the floor, reading my old copy of _The Wild Swans._ Looking over at his desk, there was a sealed envelope with _Daddy_ written messily in blue crayon.

Seeing that word made me sick. He didn’t deserve that title. He never would, not even if he showed up in the next five minutes begging my forgiveness.

“Hey Sammie,” Ray greeted me as I saw Lauren’s eyes close. “You okay?”

I nodded, taking a deep breath to steady myself.

“I will be, if you can hold my hand while I explain this stupidity to my four year old.”

“Whenever you need.” Dad nodded as Ray covered Lauren with a blanket on the floor, not daring to move her in case she woke up.

“Later though, not now. I've got a letter to write.”

I left them both in the hallway while I quickly shed my jacket and boots, went into the bathroom, and expelled my stomach contents into the toilet.

After that, I sat down on the floor, put my head in my hands, and cried.

We'd get through this, somehow. But I couldn't do it alone.

I'd figure out what to do about it later.

Maybe.


End file.
